The
Philadelphia Community-Based
Homelessness Prevention Program assists low-income renter and
homeowner households (both individuals and families) maintain their housing
or move to more affordable housing through a variety of services provided
in the household. s community. The six Prevention Center sites are
located in neighborhoods where, research has shown, a high concentration
of homeless households resided just prior to entering emergency shelter.
The Prevention Program staff work in existing community services
organizations that offer to the surrounding community a range of
supportive services, as well as referrals to other human services
providers in the neighborhood and around the City.

Eligible households must
be facing loss of housing due to rent, mortgage, or utility arrears, and
have an income at or below 150% of the federal poverty level. Households
with no income, or residents of shelter, may be eligible for assistance.
Current Section 8 recipients who are required to move may be eligible if
their reason for moving is related to a noncompliant landlord or domestic
violence.

Assistance is provided
through budget counseling; case management for up to six months;
employment assistance -- job development and job readiness coaching, and
referrals to job training programs; grants for back rent, mortgage or
utility payments; grants for security deposits and emergency employment
needs; and grants for forward payments of rent, mortgage, or utilities.
Clients may receive case management and budget counseling without
receiving grant funds. Some clients may be eligible for emergency grant
funds without ongoing case management, but are required to attend budget
counseling and a case management session. Partial and forward payments of
emergency funds are contingent upon meeting monthly case management goals
set by the client and the Prevention Program staff, to reinforce that a
grant alone will not solve a complex situation or effectively prevent
homelessness, and to encourage self-sufficiency. Up to $1200 may be made
available to a household, per year, in a combination of arrears and
forward payments.

The
Prevention Program also
emphasizes the need to address non-economic issues that directly impact
on a household. s ability to maintain affordable housing. Each
center has established referral links to community-based organizations and
service providers to assist those clients who have issues with substance
abuse, mental illness, and domestic violence.

The Homelessness
Prevention Hotline, run by a non-profit agency as an in-kind service to
the Prevention Program, directs callers to the neighborhood centers or to
emergency shelter intake sites depending upon their particular
situation.

When and Why Created

The Prevention Program
began in January 1995 as a pilot program at two neighborhood centers
through a partnership of a city-wide energy assistance agency, a
homelessness advocacy organization, and two community-based social
services agencies that served as the program intake sites. This pilot was
created to show that by providing assistance to some near-homeless
households while they were still in their homes, it would be possible to
prevent unnecessary shelter stays that are costly to the family (in terms
of self-sufficiency) and taxing on the limited resources of the local
shelter system. In the early months of the program, individuals affected
by cuts and changes in eligibility for state-funded General Assistance
were the target population. Lessons learned over the first two years of
the pilot program were incorporated into an expansion of the program that
now serves families and individuals at a total of six community-based
organizations and offers coordinated assistance through case management,
grants for arrears, security deposits, forward payments, and
employment-related assistance.

Measurements of Effectiveness

In FY . 98, the prevention centers served approximately 2300
households. The baseline measurement of effectiveness of the program has
been a comparison of shelter intake records with records of participants
in the Prevention Program. The most recent comparison showed that one year
after receiving assistance, shelter stays were prevented for 93% of all
households assisted through the program. An evaluation of the policies,
procedures, and effectiveness of the Prevention Program is underway and
expected to be completed in the summer of 1999. This evaluation will
incorporate case management records, one-to-one interviews with current
and former participants, focus groups with Program staff, comparisons with
shelter data, GIS mapping of participants. addresses, and review of
behavioral outcomes data recorded for a cohort of participants over a
three-month period.

Financing of Program

The Prevention Program is
funded annually at $2 million -- staff / administration and emergency
grants combined -- with local dollars (City General Funds).

Linkage to City Government

The City of Philadelphia
Office of Housing and Community Development funds two non-profit agencies
to administer the program at three sites per agency. Prevention Program
policy is set at the City level with significant input from the
administering agencies and, in past years, from the homeless services and
academic communities through the Homelessness Prevention and Housing
Stabilization Task Force convened by a City Councilperson.

Major Lessons

Developing and implementing
a prevention program poses a wide range of challenges, including:
piecing together appropriate funding (federal funding is not available
for programs seeking to prevent homelessness); finding a realistic
target population when faced with overwhelming needs and limited resources;
determining a workable combination of services provided by the program
and offered by the larger community that will have an impact beyond
alleviating the household. s immediate crisis; and measuring the
success of a prevention program.

In moving the program from
the pilot stage it was recognized that requiring ongoing case management
and providing employment assistance (job development / readiness coaching,
and referrals to training programs) were key element that enabled
households to move beyond their immediate financial crisis. For some
households, linking forward payments or partial payments of arrears to
meeting case management goals has been an effective motivator for making
long-term changes. The evaluation of the Prevention Program will also look
at how effective it is to provide assistance to households in their
neighborhoods, at sites that are known as sources of assistance to the
community and that have staff familiar with needs and resources particular
to that community.